Actual Unretouched Photo

My kitchen knives haven’t been professionally sharpened since I took them to the mall in Bellingham in 1991.  I wish I were kidding.

Sure, I have a home sharpener which I occasionally pull out of its hiding spot, but those knives are dull.

If I need to cut open a lime, for instance, first I have to stab the lime with the point of the knife so I can push the blade through.

One of my 19-year old sons has been begging me to get the knives sharpened.  He looked online and found a shop with raving reviews and sent me the link.  That was several months ago.

Finally yesterday I found myself with a few free hours.  I decided to deliver the knives to the shop so they could be sharpened.

I put the address into my GPS, drove ten minutes and . . . found myself in a residential neighborhood.  Was the knife sharpener guy working out of his garage?  I don’t know but I was not comfortable with the idea of knocking on a stranger’s door with a bag full of knives, asking for help.

So I used my phone and found another knife sharpening shop, entered the address into my GPS, drove ten more minutes and . . . found myself in another residential area.

At that point, I posted on Facebook (from my phone) asking local people if they knew of a place to get knives sharpened.

As it turned out, my next-door neighbor left a Facebook comment and told me that a knife-sharpening guy is at the Farmer’s Market every Saturday.  So I guess that’s where I’ll be on Saturday.

How funny, though, that all this technology–Google, my iPhone, my GPS–led me to my next-door neighbor.  Next time I’ll just go into my backyard and shout over the fence.

A million light years ago when I was twenty, I used to sing a song with these words:

Make me a servant, humble and meek,
Lord, let me lift up those who are weak,
And may the prayer of my heart always be,
Make me a servant, make me a servant, make me a servant today.  

(Song by Kelly Willard)

As it turns out, I had no idea what I was singing.  I meant it, but decades ago, before I had children and a husband and a dog who will tear up three brand new boxes of tissues if you leave them on the kitchen counter after carrying in the bags from Walmart, I had no idea.  What I had, way back in the olden days, was a dorm room and a bunch of classes and a roommate who was so neat and tidy that she kept her hot rollers in the original box when she wasn’t using them.

I volunteered my time, of course, for various charitable causes.  I spent my Spring Breaks riding in vans to work in inner-city churches, helping as much as a middle-class white girl can.  During summers, I stacked chairs and followed orders and one summer, worked as a nanny for a stay-at-home doctor’s wife who had four children.

I thought I had experienced servant-hood and it wasn’t all that hard, so singing that song was a pretty way to express my ardent devotion to God.

But now?

Now I hear myself saying things like, “What am I?  The slave around here?” and “I am not your servant girl!” and “Why am I the ONLY ONE who does ANYTHING AROUND HERE?”

I hear myself.

I know that my life is blessed.  I know that I am among the world’s richest.  I have running water and modern amenities that so many people around the world can’t even imagine.  My kids are healthy.  My husband is funny and calm and an all around awesome guy.  I really have nothing to complain about.

My heart is kind of whiny, though.

My heart is not a servant’s heart.

And I’m afraid to sing that song because what does it really mean for me to be a servant?

I’m tired.

If my life were a treadmill, I would definitely push the button to slow it down.  I would, in fact, abandon the treadmill and find a comfortable couch where I could curl up and read until I fell asleep.  (This also describes why I really need a personal trainer because when the going gets tough, I prefer to get off the treadmill.)

If I were a juggler, this would be the moment when all the balls (or flaming torches) would tumble to the ground (and set me on fire?).  And so on and so forth.

So, yeah.  That’s how things have been around here.

Yesterday, I sat on my bed for ten minutes between soccer practice and an evening meeting.  The rest of the day I was in a frantic whirlwind of obligations.  (Walk the dog. Work.  Soccer practice. Procure dinner. Meeting. Work.)   But when I put it that way, it sounds serene, my day.

I don’t feel serene.

I feel obligated and tense and boring.

Today, I woke up and walked the dog.  Walking the dog for thirty minutes each morning has become essential.  That bit of exercise changes her attitude dramatically and really, unless I want a Tasmanian devil jumping at my throat, I dare not skip the walk.

Then I worked my five-hour shift.

After work, I took the dog and the girl to the pet store to buy a . . . dog birthday cake.  Don’t judge.

Back home, I started cooking dinner.  Finished cooking and eating dinner and only a few minutes later, it was time to deliver my daughter to AWANA at church.  The sky turned all shades of cottony pink as we drove so as soon as I dropped her off, I rushed to the beach and practically ran down the stairs to see the colored sky.

I took dozens of photos with my iPhone until the sky darkened and the moon brightened and then I climbed back into the car and returned home where I watched Survivor and then worked another three hours and wrote this blog post and yawned and yawned and yawned.

As I said, I’m tired.  But the sunset was absolutely glorious and the cold sand beneath my toes and the curling, crashing waves felt like a promise.

I started writing this blog on October 11, 2003.

Nine years later, here were are.

[Insert actual thoughtful blog post here.]

Help yourself to a (pretend) cupcake.  I made them myself.

This weekend, I went to Idyllwild for a retreat.  Several women told me, “I read your blog!”  So, hello to you-know-who-you-are!

I stopped several times on the drive down the mountain to take photos.

As I predicted, the second I got home, I jumped back into the fray.

Despite my fatigue, on Monday I took Grace to Disneyland, mainly so we could experience Halloween time there.

Unfortunately, because it was Columbus Day, it was quite crowded, but we still had fun.  Her new favorite ride is Grizzly River Run, which leads me to the best eight bucks I’ve ever spent at Disneyland . . . I bought a rain poncho and stayed basically dry on all three times we rode the River Run.

We left at about 7:20 PM, and I had time for a twenty minute nap before working at 9 PM.

And that’s why I don’t have time for a real blog post.

We were sitting on a bench at Disneyland a little more than two weeks ago.  Grace and I were waiting for the parade to start.  It was happy ending to our two-day birthday celebration at the Happiest Place on Earth.

Then my phone rang and it was my husband.  At first I thought he was just checking in with me, wondering when we’d be home.  But then he told me he’d discovered that our almost-one year old puppy, Lola, had eaten a bottle of ibuprofen.

I advised him that it was probably an emergency (“and the Understatement Award of the Year goes to . . Mel!”) and that he should call the vet.  Look on the fridge, I said; there’s a magnet there.  I figured he’d be referred to the emergency vet and we’d go from there.

I hung up the phone and in between friendly chit-chat with a super nice Canadian family next to us on the bench, I did a Google search and discovered that ibuprofen can kill a dog.

And that, my friends, is how Lola the Dog ended up spending three days and many, many, many dollars at the fancy-schmancy veterinary clinic, the one with the big screen television constantly playing the Food Network.  (Every time I’ve been there, I’ve watched partial episodes of “Chopped.”  I love that show.)

But I did not love worrying that Lola the Dog would die.

You may remember that a month or so ago, our cat, Smokey, died after a battle with anorexia and fatty liver disease.  We’d had a feeding tube implanted in her neck and fed her by syringe for weeks but in the end, she just continued to lose weight and suffer.

First Smokey the Cat.

Now Lola the Dog?

Miraculously–or maybe scientifically, if you consider all the medical treatment she received–Lola lived and seems to have no memory of those three days.  (I, however, remember them every month as I pay toward the bill.)

A few days after that whole ordeal, my 14-year old son tripped during P.E. class and fractured his collarbone.

About ten days later, my husband was walking across a street and twisted his ankle.  It’s purple and swollen and, according to my expert medical diagnosis, sprained.

A few days earlier, ants had swarmed in my kitchen, necessitating a frantic early-morning 90 minute clean-up and a call to the exterminator.  (Note: the exterminator guy says to never use ‘over-the-counter’ poison to clean up teeny tiny ants in the house . . . that just disrupts their trail and they’ll regroup and start another nest.  Instead, he said, use Windex or something similar.)

Then, the other day, I went to the doctor.  I had a physical, mainly so I could “establish patient care” and have a doctor’s name to write down on forms that always seem to be asking for “Family Doctor.”  Anyway, I have this mole on my foot that caught my attention–my dad died from melanoma, after all–and I wanted someone to take a professional look at it.

Is it just me or does anyone else find it awkward to meet a new person for the first time while wearing nothing but a skimpy paper vest and a paper tablecloth?

I’m not a fan.

Anyway, so next Wednesday, I’m scheduled for biopsies on not just the weird mole on my foot but also two spots on my back that I can’t even see myself.

Are we having fun yet or what?

I’m not actually worried, which in some cultures may be referred to as denial.  I can’t explain that since I am the Queen of Worry.  I just don’t have any empty squares in my calendar that I can devote to worrying about this.  I probably shouldn’t have even mentioned it so you don’t worry on my behalf.  So, forget I said anything.

In summary:

Disneyland rocks.
Smokey the Cat died.
Lola the Dog is alive and well and trying to steal food from the countertops.
The collarbone is healing.
The ankle seems to be stabilized.
Melanoma is not the boss of me.
Don’t worry.  Be happy.

UPDATE:  All my lesions are benign.

On that last day of summer in 1989, I woke up in the dark and went to work at my job at Blue Cross Blue Shield.  At noon I called my house and reached Aunt Lu.  “How’s he doing?” I asked.  “He’s resting,” she said, “Everything’s fine.”

I finished work and headed home at about 4 PM.  When I parked in my driveway, my aunt appeared in the doorway and met me on the sidewalk.  She told me I needed to go pick up my sister, that my dad was going to die very soon.

I drove a mile toward town, picked up my sister from her part-time job at KFC and returned home.  I headed straight to the back bedroom–my old bedroom with its lavender walls–and found him having a seizure.  I backed out of the room, pulling my 16-year old sister with me, back to the living room to wait. I didn’t want her to see.

Only minutes later, he died.  He was forty-seven.

Melanoma killed him.  That last day of summer–his last day of life–was twenty-three years ago.  I was twenty-four that year.

*

On February 17, 2012, I went to Disneyland with my daughter, son and husband.  We went to celebrate our son’s fourteenth birthday.  He was born on February 26, but was due on February 17, so we were celebrating on his due date rather than his actual birthday.

But February 17 meant more to me than that.

You see, on February 17, 2012, I turned 47 years and 20 days old.  I don’t normally measure my lifespan in days, but my dad had died when he was 47 years and 20 days old, so it had been on my mind, reaching the same age as my dad. I couldn’t help myself.  I kept thinking, “My dad died when he was my age.”

Disneyland is an odd place to contemplate your mortality and the sheer wonder of being alive.  At least it was for me.

After February 17, I thought I might remember each moment that I am living longer than my dad got to live.  I thought I’d be grateful and exuberant and I’d accomplish something miraculous with these bonus days, these extra days my dad never had.

But no.  Life plods along, routine as always.  On a good day, laughter fills the house and we photograph the sun setting pink over the ocean.  On a bad day, we’re all crabby and I forget to cook dinner.  My husband and I usually hang out at the end of the day, as comfortable with each other as cotton pajamas.  Chores stack up, bills arrive regularly, obligations crowd the calendar squares.  I forget.  All these extra days are miracles, 24-hour wonders.

I take them for granted.

I think about Dad.  I wonder.  What if tomorrow I weren’t here, if death snuffed my life without warning?  Unfathomable, unimaginable.  I’m right in the middle, cresting life and paddling madly to keep from going under.  He just slipped under the surface and disappeared from everything, from everyone, from me.

On this last day of summer, I”ll wake up to bright sun and wander downstairs to work.  I’ll scan my world and see that everything is fine.

I will think back twenty-three years ago when my dad’s life stuttered to an abrupt, unfinished, unfair end.

In the shadow of that loss, my extra days line up, waiting to be lived.

This morning while taking Lola on a quick walk down the street, I noticed some egg shells on a neighbor’s lawn.  They had been “egged,” or so it appeared.

This afternoon, when my husband dropped off Zach after school, he called me on the phone and told me to come outside for second.  He mentioned that there was a broken egg on our driveway.  We had been “egged”? I hadn’t noticed because we went right instead of left when Lola and I walked.

Weird.

It appeared that part of a broken egg was smashed on our driveway–but not on our garage door or house or anything.

Then on the front lawn, I spied an egg shell.  I went to pick it up and discovered a whole chicken egg.

It must be really disappointing when you are trying to throw eggs at houses and you can’t even hit the houses and you can’t even break all the eggs you throw.

And now, just for fun, my sleep will be disrupted for the next two weeks.

I normally crawl into bed by 2 AM and wake up somewhere around 9 AM.  But for now, I will wake up at 6 AM to take off my boy’s sling so he can shower before school.  Then I will give my puppy her stomach medicine.  Then, back to sleep–sort of–until it’s time to put the sling back on.  It it all complicated and requires me and only me to adjust it correctly so his arm is cradled and not pulling on his broken collarbone.

Then, back to sleep before it’s time to walk the dog for thirty minutes.  A thirty minute walk improves her attitude and behavior a great deal. It is not optional.

I’ll be working again by 10 AM.  Tomorrow is a soccer night and I really must buy more bread and other victuals and if all goes well, I can do that while Grace is practicing soccer.  Then, home by 7 PM.

I feel a lot like I’m running after a car, trying to get it to stop so I can get in and ride instead of run . . . but the driver won’t stop.

My life is wearing me out.   But at least I wasn’t photographed topless while sunbathing at my  private French estate.

I was working at my desk, wearing an unflattering outfit.  My hair was crazy.  I hadn’t put on any makeup since I rolled out of bed at the last minute, showered and reported to my desk with no time to spare before my shift began. Oh, the glories of working at home!

My phone rang.

At first, I couldn’t understand the male voice.  Then I realized what he was saying.

My 14-year old son was injured.  The P.E. teacher was walking him back to the campus from the field across the street.  During class, Zach had fallen onto his shoulder, maybe dislocated it.

I instant-messaged my co-worker and without even waiting for her response, left my desk, found my shoes, gathered my 10-year old and dialed my husband.  I also made sure I had Zach’s insurance card and off we headed to the school.  I talked to my husband while driving.  We discussed which Urgent Care to use–and fortunately, last week I made myself a doctor’s appointment and the lady on the phone mentioned that the Urgent Care was on the first floor and the doctor’s office was on the second.  Miraculously, I knew exactly where to go and it was only minutes from the school campus.

I found my son in the nurse’s office looking pale, sweaty and disheveled.  He cradled his left arm with his right.  The P.E. teacher explained that Zach fell onto his shoulder and a few minutes later heard a pop and then had more pain.  He said again he thought maybe it was a dislocated shoulder.

I looked at my boy and said, “You know, he looks exactly like my other son did when he fractured his collar bone.”

Then we went to Urgent Care where we enjoyed the quickest medical attention ever.  Seriously.  Amazing.

The doctor came in, asked questions, then began to examine him.  When he pressed on Zach’s collar bone, Zach winced.  I knew then that I was right.

This, my friends, is what a fractured collar bone looks like.

He has a sling now and orders to take ibuprofen and a prescription for something stronger.  He will be out of P.E. for six weeks and he’s so sad that he can’t play his guitar, either.

I have had enough excitement for this week.

If I were a different kind of person, I’d definitely refuse to leave the house and I’d wrap all the sharp edges with bubble wrap and insist everyone stay safely in bed until this passes, whatever this is.

Instead, we will keep calm and carry on.